Hell's March by Taylor Anderson

Author:Taylor Anderson [Anderson, Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

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THE STRANGE LITTLE dance that ultimately resulted in the parley between 3rd Division’s Colonel Itzam and General Agon had numerous awkward steps, all actually foreseen by Lewis Cayce and prescribed by him for this occasion. After much apparent confusion on the walls, the six lancers were eventually met in the center of the killing field by an equal number of Ocelomeh dragoons, as resplendent as their enemy in dark blue jackets and sky-blue trousers, yellow herringbone trim, bright brass buttons and beltplates, and startlingly white leather belts and carbine slings. They weren’t as garish as their counterparts, but looked just as fine. Speaking largely the same language, the dragoons communicated to the lancers that one of each of them would retire, pair by pair, until only a single trooper remained from either side. Only then would their principals emerge and meet, accompanied by a single attendant. Without such instructions, the Doms were at a loss for how to deal with this, and it was agreed among them there that a single pair would first retire to “consult,” before returning simultaneously to confirm the arrangements. This, of course, so no one would ever be outnumbered.

Even after agreement was reached, the dance remained a stately affair, with each pair of troopers slowly retiring to their respective lines—at the plodding pace set by the dragoons—before the next pair turned to do the same. Finally, with only one dragoon and one lancer still sitting on their horses about ten yards apart, sullenly staring and saying nothing at all, Colonel Itzam and his young aide, an Itzincabo named Raul Uo, finally mounted their horses and trotted out through the massive, reinforced south gate of Nautla. There they waited until General Agon and Capitan Arevalo were seen to emerge from the ranks of troops still spreading out from the cut in the distant forest.

“Sir, may I ask what all is about?” Lieutenant Uo asked as they rode out into the killing ground, his tone slightly flustered.

Colonel Itzam chuckled. “It’s been expected all along that the enemy commander—likely General Agon, Colonel Cayce believed—would want another meeting. As twisted as his cause might be, he imagines himself a proper soldier even as the Americans reckon such things and yearns to ‘do things right.’ Obviously, there’s a big difference between ‘doing things right’ and ‘doing the right thing,’ ” Itzam said more somberly, “but Agon and his . . . subsect of ‘holy warriors,’ as they perceive themselves, seem taken with the correct forms and ceremonies of war. Unfortunately for them, having never dealt with a military equal, they don’t know exactly what those forms entail.”

“So we could just make them up as we go and they’d be none the wiser.”

Itzam chuckled again. “To a degree, we are. Not that it matters. Niceties between soldiers on the battlefield don’t extend to Dom behavior toward conquered peoples,” he continued more darkly. “And the . . . hobby manners of semisecret societies of Dom soldiers don’t matter at all to Blood Cardinals or Blood Priests.

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